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Apple Pudding with Rice
Six sour apples, one cup of cold boiled rice, one pint of milk, one cup of sugar, the juice and rind of one lemon, and yolks of four eggs. Core and chop the apples; add the boiled rice and milk, beat the lumps out, add the other ingredients and bake. Beat the whites of the four eggs with a little sugar, spread on top and brown.
A baked rice custard under a meringue lid, written for a cook who already knew how long a custard takes. The original gives no oven heat, no dish size and no time, so all three need supplying.
- Oven heat and timeThe original specifies neither. A modern equivalent is 350F; in a 2-quart dish the custard needs roughly 45 to 55 minutes, until set at the edges and barely trembling at the centre. It will finish setting as it cools, so pull it before it puffs and cracks.
- "Sour apples"This means tart cooking apples, not spoiled ones. Granny Smith, Bramley or any firm, sharp variety works; sweet modern eating apples such as Gala will leave the pudding cloying, with nothing to cut the cup of sugar and the meringue.
- Chop finer than you thinkRaw apple in a custard baked only 50 minutes will not soften much. Chop to a quarter-inch dice, or grate coarsely, or the pudding sets around crunchy chunks.
- The riceOne cup of plain cooked white rice, cold and unsalted-or lightly salted-and cooked soft rather than al dente. Short or medium grain gives a creamier body than long grain. Break up the clumps in the milk before the eggs go in, as directed; lumps of rice will not disperse later.
- Lemon rindZest only, finely grated, avoiding the white pith. A pared strip of peel left whole would flavour a boiled custard but is unpleasant to bite into here.
- SugarOne cup in the custard is generous by current taste, especially with a sweetened meringue on top. Three-quarters of a cup suits most palates and still sets properly, since sugar here is flavour rather than structure.
- The meringueBeat the four whites to soft peaks with about a quarter cup of sugar, spread it to the edges of the dish so it seals, and return to the oven for 12 to 15 minutes at 350F until the peaks colour. Sealing to the rim keeps it from shrinking away and weeping.
- YieldSix to eight servings. Best warm rather than hot, when the custard has firmed; it is also good cold, though the meringue softens overnight.
Rice puddings sweetened, spiced and enriched with eggs run back through English cookery for centuries, and American household books of the later nineteenth century carry numerous variations on the theme: rice with apples, rice with raisins, rice with lemon, rice "snowballs" and so on. What suits this one to its period is the frugality of the method-it begins with a cup of cold boiled rice, which suggests it was written around leftovers, and finishes by using the four whites left from the custard as a meringue. The pairing of tart apple with lemon and a soft custard made a small amount of egg and sugar go further, and a browned meringue cap was a common finish for baked puddings.